Adding a large number of users on a Windows domain

PaperCut uses the standard Windows user accounts - either the domain accounts, Active Directory user list, or in the case of a peer-to-peer network, the local user login accounts. PaperCut will automatically synchronize its user list with the Windows user list when any of the following occurs:

When a manual “User/Group Sync” is performed

When the “User/Group Sync” process is triggered by any other means, such as when ‘Overnight User/Group Sync’ is enabled, or the process is initiated via server-command or the XML Web Services API. See the User Guide for more details.

A common question is, “How do I easily add a large number of users?” - for example, at the start of a new school semester. To help streamline account management within PaperCut, a number of features are included to assist with the automatic creation of new user accounts. The “Initial Credit” rules under the Groups section in the PaperCut Administration Console allow administrators to define how new accounts are created including:

How much initial credit they are allocated

Their initial privilege level (i.e. unrestricted/restricted)

For example, in a school, junior students maybe allocated $5.00 while members of the “senior students” group get $10.00 and “teaching staff” have unrestricted access. It’s worth taking the time to set-up these rules before adding a batch of new users.

As for creating the new Windows accounts, we recommend using tools provided my Microsoft specifically designed for this task.

Windows Active Directory

Active Directory offers an advanced scripting interface. System Administrators with VBScripting experience should consider this option. Others can use the “addusers.exe” program as detailed above. After bulk adding the users with the addusers.exe program, follow up the operation with the Active Directory modifications using either the standard Active Directory management tools or bulk edits using the little known tools:

Windows NT or 2000 [Legacy]

Note that Windows 2000 is not supported on the latest releases of PaperCut, as detailed on the Windows 2000 Support page.

One such tool for Windows 2000 is the “AddUsers” program designed to import/delete users defined and maintained in a spreadsheet, such as one created with Microsoft Excel. Further information on the addusers.exe utility is available at:

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